Artist Statement

I wrote the following Artist Statement over a decade ago, when I was still in graduate school. A Pinay MA candidate in Asian American Studies requested I do so for her MA thesis on Pinays in the Arts.

I shy away from the word “Activist,” but wholeheartedly believe my work is “Political.” I believe when a Pinay writes, and she is the subject of her own narratives, then she is subverting those master narratives which have figured her as a voiceless and passive object. As a poet, I believe in using to the fullest potential form, punctuation, the page, and language; I believe in remodeling the master’s house using the master’s tools. I believe in subverting the master’s literary forms and art disciplines by simultaneously insinuating and forcing into his forms my own base of cultural and historical knowledge, thus contributing to the hybridizing and mongrelizing of what once was culturally exclusive. And finally, I believe in publishing, creating and leaving tangible evidence of our words, voices, and visions.